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Meet Mr. Trash Wheel Who Eats Trash For Lunch

Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor initiate has set themselves a challenge to reconnect the citizens of Baltimore to their environment and it is using a watermill-like trash-eating wheel to do that. Daniel Chase and John Kellet designed what locals call the Mr. Trash Wheel, and so far the barge has “eaten” over 1 million pounds (which is about 100K pounds more than a Boeing 747 weighs), but its appetite only grows! Healthy Harbor aims to make the Baltimore Harbor swimmable and fishable by 2020 and Mr. Trash Wheel is one of their most contributing solutions. It combines hydro and solar energy to collect litter and debris flowing down the Jones Falls River. The river’s current provides power to turn the water wheel, which lifts trash and debris from the water and deposits it into a dumpster barge. When there isn’t enough water current, a solar panel array provides additional power to keep the machine running. When the dumpster is full, it’s towed away by boat, and a new dumpster is put in place. “Ultimately our goal is to put the water wheel out of business,” Healthy Harbor’s Adam Lindquist says. “It’s great because it’s immediate and innovative, but the real solution is that people need to change their behavior.”

Meet Mr. Trash Wheel Who Eats Trash For Lunch

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Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor initiate has set themselves a challenge to reconnect the citizens of Baltimore to their environment and it is using a watermill-like trash-eating wheel to do that. Daniel Chase and John Kellet designed what locals call the Mr. Trash Wheel, and so far the barge has “eaten” over 1 million pounds (which is about 100K pounds more than a Boeing 747 weighs), but its appetite only grows! Healthy Harbor aims to make the Baltimore Harbor swimmable and fishable by 2020 and Mr. Trash Wheel is one of their most contributing solutions. It combines hydro and solar energy to collect litter and debris flowing down the Jones Falls River. The river’s current provides power to turn the water wheel, which lifts trash and debris from the water and deposits it into a dumpster barge. When there isn’t enough water current, a solar panel array provides additional power to keep the machine running. When the dumpster is full, it’s towed away by boat, and a new dumpster is put in place. “Ultimately our goal is to put the water wheel out of business,” Healthy Harbor’s Adam Lindquist says. “It’s great because it’s immediate and innovative, but the real solution is that people need to change their behavior.”

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Not really. You would be surprised how much trash escapes from cans on pickup day. If you've ever done adopt-a-highway, or a similar program, you quickly realize that only a small percentage of what you pick up actually flew out of car windows. Sure, there is plenty of 'litter' but come on, who's throwing water-softener salt bags out of the window of their car? Nobody. The harbor above looks terrible because it is the end-point for litter from a vast area which is collected all in one place. If you calculated the land area upwind of the watershed of this river, that's not much trash per unit-area.

Not really. You would be surprised how much trash escapes from cans on pickup day. If you've ever done adopt-a-highway, or a similar program, you quickly realize that only a small percentage of what you pick up actually flew out of car windows. Sure, there is plenty of 'litter' but come on, who's throwing water-softener salt bags out of the window of their car? Nobody. The harbor above looks terrible because it is the end-point for litter from a vast area which is collected all in one place. If you calculated the land area upwind of the watershed of this river, that's not much trash per unit-area.